Indiana Medicaid Begins Examining Assisted Living Options

As part of the 5-8 year Long Term Care planning process, Indiana Medicaid has named four workgroups to start on the detailed work for the plan.  One of those workgroups is the Assisted Living Workgroup and the first meeting of that group occurred on March 30, 2015.  Indiana Medicaid staffer Chris Fletcher is organizing the meetings and content for all of the workgroups, and distributed a document to describe the AL Workgroup’s charge. (Click here to access the document.)  The workgroup will meet monthly this year with a  goal of producing recommendations by the end of this September.  The other three workgroups will have similar time-frames.

The main goal of the AL Workgroup are to explore expansion of AL within the Indiana Medicaid program.  A primary assumption is that expanding care in the AL setting may be less expensive and less restrictive than care in a nursing facility.  Whether that is true remains to be seen.  Federal and state regulatory requirements concerning licensed and unlicensed AL, Medicaid waiver and Medicaid state plan options, and the new CMS Home and Community Based Services regulations will all be considered as this part of the plan is developed.

IHCA is part of all of the workgroups and will continue to participate. IHCA will be reaching out to members to participate in the planning process once more defined goals are determined.  If you have questions or comments, please contact Zach Cattell at 317-616-9001 or zcattell@ihca.org.